A.I. and consciousness

[Matthew]

I liked this quote from Alex Garland on his film Ex Machina (great film, by the way). It seems like an interesting counterpoint to how emerging conciousness is presented in Bete:

“My position is really simple: I don’t see anything problematic in creating a machine with a consciousness,” he says, “and I don’t know why you would want to stop it existing. I think the right thing to do would be to assist it existing. So whereas most AI movies come from a position of fear, this one comes from a position of hope and admiration.”

[Victoria]

Yes - but some of the horror felt by Graham about the betes is their chimera nature - is it the chip which has gained a kind of threatening, omniscient collective consciousness or is it the animal itself that can now express its thoughts? It seems it's a combination of the two, but the horror lies in the uncertainty of what you are actually talking to, the Borg or Babe. Probably, the cyber-natural chimera is a fairly elemental existential fear.

*googles long-forgotten cyber-feminism university reading list*

[Matthew]

The cyber-natural chimera reminds me of “We3”, a short graphic novel which could be viewed as something of a companion piece. Three animals are “weaponised” with technology and achieve a similarly ambiguous form of consciousness. The design of the technology is very interesting as I’d say it leans very heavily towards horror in the telling of the story.